by TJ Martinell | Aug 10, 2022 | 2nd Amendment, Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe isn’t well-known today, but he was an influential figure in the founding era. Coxe advocated for the new Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and he wrote extensively about the right to keep and bear arms. In their paper Tench Coxe And The Right To Keep...
by Mike Maharrey | May 26, 2020 | Constitution, Tench Coxe
I hear a lot of bad constitutional arguments justifying this or that federal action. One common justification for expanding federal power is: “This thing is necessary! It needs to be done.” But it doesn’t follow that the federal government has to do...
by Rob Natelson | Sep 16, 2019 | Constitution, Federalism, Founding Principles, Tench Coxe
Judging by the promises of presidential candidates, you might think the federal government is designed to fix whatever ails us: health care, education, crime, infrastructure, the common cold. But the Constitution doesn’t grant the federal government such unlimited...
by Rob Natelson | Apr 30, 2019 | 2nd Amendment, Tench Coxe
Does the Constitution’s right to keep and bear arms apply to everyone? Or only to law enforcement and the National Guard? Does the right include so-called “assault weapons?” A newly published document from America’s founding offers a clue. When interpreting the...
by Rob Natelson | Apr 6, 2019 | 2nd Amendment, Ratification Debates, Tench Coxe
This is the second article examining contributions to our understanding of the Constitution from the three brand new volumes of the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution of the United States. My first article observed that probably the greatest...
by Rob Natelson | Apr 2, 2019 | Constitution, Ratification Debates, Tench Coxe
Scholars working on the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution are approaching the end of the project they began in the 1970s, yet they continue to publish new material. They have just issued three new volumes of ratification-era papers from...
